The 37-year-old, who has had the hair loss condition since she was a child, said she was left shocked when a cleaner at the Trinity Square shop asked her “Are you aware you’re in the female toilet?” She said she became distressed and burst into tears.
Helen said she feels the incident in Tesco may have stemmed from the debate in recent years over transgender rights. She said: "I suspect it’s stemming from this which is a shame but I think potentially why people are being more cautious.
"I can understand the cautiousness from a business point of view but they’ve also got to be aware of diversity and people being different. They should not make assumptions on visible differences.
“I just think that we need to raise awareness of the condition and that people do look different. If you’re concerned about something ask privately or sensitively.”
So she’s not against the public harassment of people using toilets per se, just doesn’t want them directed against people with her condition specifically? Girl, visible differences are almost entirely what this boils down to in practice—people being uncomfortable when they see someone who doesn’t look “normal”. Justifying the underlying motive but not the outcome just means you want a carve-out
Once idiots feel empowered to become the Pants-contents Police, this is where it leads.
Why has a company as rich as Tesco still got mostly gendered toilets anyway?
TERF Island having a normal one, I see
harass 99% of cis women to “protect” them from 1% of trans women, it’s genius
Just get rid of gendered toilets already. If you can’t play nicely with it, you shouldn’t have it.
You need urinals in some fashion, a row of standing urinals can be pretty private if you just have a tall divider, but their throughput is so much higher it would be terrible if you lost them in high traffic areas.
lol you assume that the doors have to be open. you can have floor to ceiling doors like places with gender neutral bathrooms do
The SEATAC airport has a few non-gendered restrooms and they’re pretty nice. There’s a big shared area with sinks, a wall of “stalls” (really fully enclosed toilet rooms, no panel gaps and floor to ceiling doors), and a separate room off in the back with urinals (and an automatic sliding door). Kinda seems like a pretty good solution all around.
When we were paying for parking he chased after us and gave me a bunch of flowers.
That Tesco manager chasing after Helen and her husband with flowers was a class act though.
Helen said she feels the incident in Tesco may have stemmed from the debate in recent years over transgender rights. She said: "I suspect it’s stemming from this which is a shame but I think potentially why people are being more cautious.
"I can understand the cautiousness from a business point of view but they’ve also got to be aware of diversity and people being different. They should not make assumptions on visible differences.
“I just think that we need to raise awareness of the condition and that people do look different. If you’re concerned about something ask privately or sensitively.”
What is this “cautiosness” she’s talking about? There has literally never been a case of a transgender person doing anything inappropriate in a public toilet…
Even if there were, that person is responsible for their actions, not an entire category of people.
What is this “cautiosness” she’s talking about? There has literally never been a case of a transgender person doing anything inappropriate in a public toilet…
You probably haven’t seen the examples because of your social media algorithm.
#Confirmed Convictions
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2016 | Idaho, USA | Shauna Smith - Secretly filmed an 18-year-old woman changing clothes in a Target fitting room in Ammon. Pleaded guilty to felony video voyeurism and was sentenced to five years in prison in January 2017, with two years fixed. Source: https://www.eastidahonews.com/2017/01/target-voyeur-sentenced-victim-says-felt-emotional-mutilation-following-incident/
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February 2018 | Dunfermline, Scotland | Katie Dolatowski - Secretly filmed a 12-year-old girl using the women’s toilets at Asda by holding a mobile phone over the cubicle partition. Admitted the offence and received a community sentence. Source: https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/courts/848931/fife-sex-offender-back-in-court-after-breaching-community-payback-order/
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March 2018 | Kirkcaldy, Scotland | Katie Dolatowski - Sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl in the toilets at Morrisons, forcing her into a cubicle and demanding that she remove her trousers. Admitted the offence and received a community payback order. Source: https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/fife/832849/warning-as-transgender-sex-offender-placed-in-womens-hostel/
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2014 (conviction and sentencing in 2022) | California, USA | Hannah Tubbs - Sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl in the women’s toilet at a Denny’s restaurant in Palmdale. Pleaded guilty and received a two-year juvenile-facility sentence. Source: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-27/26-year-old-who-sexually-assaulted-girl-while-underage-will-serve-two-year-term-in-juvenile-facility-judge-rules
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January-November 2023 (convicted 2025) | Middlesbrough and Darlington, England | Chleo Sunter - Secretly recorded men using toilets at Aldi, a shopping centre and Darlington railway station. Police found 790 photographs and 15 videos of men in cubicles and at urinals. Admitted two voyeurism offences and six breaches of a sexual harm prevention order. Sentenced to 26 months in prison. Source: https://inview.org.uk/news/181768-cex_offender_jailed_for_secretly_filming_men_in_aldi_and_public_toilets/181768-sex_offender_jailed_for_secretly_filming_men_in_aldi_and_public_toilets
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2024 | Arlington, Virginia, USA | Richard Cox - A transgender woman and registered sex offender accused of inappropriate exposure in women’s locker rooms at school swimming pools and recreation centres. In October 2026, convicted of 12 felony counts of prohibited sex-offender loitering near children. Five indecent-exposure and five indecent-liberties charges remain pending, with trial scheduled for January 2027. Official source: https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Departments/Courts/Commonwealth-Attorney/Commonwealth’s-Attorney-News/Richard-K.-Cox-Guilty-of-12-Felony-Charges-of-Loitering-After-Conviction-of-an-Offense-Prohibiting-Proximity-to-Children
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March 2022 (convicted December 2022) | Birmingham, England | Ian Bullock - Sexually assaulted a woman while she washed her hands in the women’s toilets at Birmingham New Street station. When questioned, claimed to identify as female. Convicted and sentenced to 16 months in prison in February 2023. Source: https://www.itv.com/news/central/2023-02-21/man-who-said-he-identified-as-female-sexually-assaulted-woman-in-station-toilet
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2022-2023 (sentenced March 2024) | Durham, England | Kurtis Mawson - Secretly filmed women using public toilets in Durham, alongside other sexual offences. When confronted by police in the women’s toilets, claimed to identify as female. Pleaded guilty and received a 25-month prison sentence. Source: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/jk-rowling-says-happened-again-134644605.html
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June 2025 | Durham, England | Kurtis Mawson - Recorded women in female public toilets again while on licence for earlier offences. Admitted further voyeurism and breaching a sexual harm prevention order in July 2025. Source: https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/25333298.willington-man-kurtis-mawson-guilty-repeated-voyeurism/
#Documented Incidents but Identity / Public Record Withheld
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February 2019 | Durant, Oklahoma, USA | Alicia Gray / Sean Ojeda - A transgender woman accused of attempting to touch a 16-year-old boy’s genitals in the men’s toilet at Walmart. Police arrested the suspect for alleged sexual battery. I could not verify the final court outcome. Source: https://www.kxii.com/content/news/Father-of-teen-molested-at-Durant-Wal-505807091.html
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March 2025 | Loudoun County, Virginia, USA | Unnamed transgender student - A transgender male student recorded audio and video of two boys in a school changing room. The US Department of Education subsequently found that the school district had mishandled the boys’ complaints and treated the parties unequally. Recording in changing rooms was prohibited by school policy. No criminal conviction against the student has been established. Official source: https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-concludes-loudoun-county-public-schools-violated-title-ix-and-retaliated-against-male-students-amid-sexual-harassment
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May 2025 (publicised January 2026) | California, USA | Unnamed individual - A woman alleged that someone identifying as transgender was masturbating in a women’s Planet Fitness changing-room toilet cubicle. Video of a confrontation circulated online. The accused denied masturbating. The allegation was not established by a court, and no criminal outcome was verified. Source: https://www.outkick.com/analysis/woman-accuses-trans-identifying-male-masturbating-planet-fitness-womens-locker-room
Note that these are just the really public cases. They are far from exhaustive, and obviously exclude all crimes which were not reported or investigated.
Wow your brain is fuuuuuuuucked
Absolutely deranged behaviour from this commenter lmfao
And in literally zero of these cases was anyone’s gender identity relevant to their crime. Raping someone is already a crime. Filming someone changing or toileting is already a crime. If a cis man goes and has a wee in the ladies’ room and washes his hands and leaves, I don’t care. If he’s a member of the alt-right and he claims to be trans to get attention on social media, I don’t care. If he rapes someone, then I care. If he films someone, then I care.
A lot of conservatives say the only way to protect people from a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. I propose an analogous principle: One way to protect women from a raping man in the loo is to have a good man in the loo with them. By segregating the toilets, you’re ensuring that the only cis men in the ladies’ room are either cleaners, plumbers, or rapists. Desegregate, and there will be lots of good men going to wee in the gender neutral washroom who can stop a rapist.
I make the above recommendation largely in jest, but the end result is something I believe in. A world where we all just go into the stall to have a wee, pull up our trousers, wash our hands, and leave. Your gender identity or what bits are inside your trousers does not have to be relevant, other than the principle that there should be a sanitary bin and a hygiene product dispenser.
Oh, and one more thing: The hygiene product dispenser should be free. We all get our toilet paper for free when we poo in a public loo. I believe in universal basic toilet paper, and I believe in universal basic tampons. This is not a difficult problem to solve when we are looking at nation-scale economics. The government should just give us all toilet paper, and our choice of tampon, pad, or none of the above. If nothing else, it would reduce the number of people flushing non-degradable wet wipes. Probably save the government money, all told.
And add bidets to the fucking building codes already! All new construction should have bidet toilet seats! With front AND back wash settings!
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If the business were to be cautious, they’d fix their damned toilets to not be gendered, divisive and exclusionary.
I think she was just trying to be diplomatic.
"I can understand the cautiousness from a business point of view but they’ve also got to be aware of diversity and people being different. They should not make assumptions on visible differences.
Isn’t that exactly what the law forces though? To somehow decide based on looks alone who should be in which toilet?
Exactly what the law enforces will differ by jurisdiction
This is not devolved and I believe the law being refered to is the one that has been clarified in the recent guidance after a supreme court decision.
Health is normally devolved, but this is counted as “human rights”.
Couldn’t they also just not do that? Surely the law doesn’t require them to hire someone to police the toilets.
Gender neutral toilets could also get around it surely. Worked in multiple places with them and no one has ever cared.
Helen, who appeared as an actress in zombie movie 28 years later, said she decided she did not want to hide her hair loss by wearing wigs.
I just saw that film and didn’t remember which role she had, so I checked IMDB, and it just says “infected women”.
Turns out they gave her really shitty patchy strands of hair as part of that role: https://www.facebook.com/groups/379052361293089/posts/725981959933459/ That was accidentally kind of funny and unexpected.
Transphobia harms everyone, not just trans people. It’s sad that this argument needs to be used, but I’ve heard some cis people find it convincing.
Sadly even this doesn’t help with some people.
I once had a conversation with a particularly tall cis woman who’d briefly been the target of transphobic abuse in a womens’ toilet. She somehow managed to blame this on the existence of trans people 🤷
Two cynical takes on “transphobia harms everyone”:
- I only care if it affects me
- trans are only a small percentage of the population, who cares, but if it harms everyone then it makes sense to care
(Not apologizing for transphobia, just deconstructing the thought)
i only care if it affects me
Thats pretty much my stance, but you must always be thinking “if it can happen to them it can happen to me”
Sure, ideally the way it impacts trans people should be enough. But anything that affects more people negatively is a worse thing.
If I wanted to influence car safety policy, and I can pick from two examples to make my case:
- a car accident kills the person driving it
- a car accident kills everyone inside it and some bystanders
I’d be a fool not to use 2 as an example.
I often think about this. I don’t think it’s wrong to provide selfish reasons to do the right thing.
In the end, the world is full of people with different priorities and ways of thinking, if you restrict yourself to only the “pure” morality arguments it’s not like you can use the purity of your argument to correct the brains of all the people who are not swayed. But if you provide a variety of arguments you’ll convince lots more people.
And in reality most people are not pure selfish or pure selfless. Spoonful of sugar (selfish benefit) helps the medicine (selfless morals) go down.
Not trying to entirely quench your cynicism, just lightly cool it.
